A FAMILIAR MEME. A NEW CONTEXT.
Morshu is a plump merchant in orange clothes from the Philips CD-i game Link: The Faces of Evil. His overly sweet sales pitch about lamp oil, rope and bombs spread through parody clips and became a template for absurd jokes.
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Before us is a cartoon character with pointed ears, a round face and brown mustache. He wears an orange shirt with a yellow cape and a green hat with a purple feather. His eyes are drawn as spirals, and his mouth is stretched in a wide smile. With one hand he reaches toward the viewer; in the other he holds a small red object resembling a cylinder.
Behind him is a cramped shop: shelves with crates and weapons, and a shield visible in the distance. The image looks rough, with hand-drawn animation in the style of an early multimedia video, and this is exactly what gave the character his meme appeal.
Morshu is a shopkeeper from Link: The Faces of Evil, a 1993 game for the Philips CD-i console. It was made by the studio Animation Magic under license from Nintendo, and it is not a main entry in The Legend of Zelda series but a side game on the Philips console. In the shop Morshu sells bombs, rope and lamp oil.
The hero's main line is an offer of goods: lamp, rope, bombs, all yours, my friend, if you have enough rupees. The drawn-out “mmmm”, delivered with a pleased intonation, is especially memorable. The name of the voice actor is given differently in various databases, so it is better not to fix it here.
From the mid-2000s, clips from the game became material for YouTube Poop: parody montages where lines are chopped up and rearranged to music. The sound insert with “mmmm” proved convenient for rhythmic remixes.
In 2020 interest in Morshu returned, and in early 2021 a three-dimensional retelling of the scene with ray-tracing effects by animator Hoolopee gained great popularity; data on the exact date and view count differ. Russian-language social media communities picked up the character in a post-ironic spirit; exactly when this happened is not reliably known.
Three things combine to make it funny: an excessively pleased face, hypnotic eyes and a sales monologue that sounds both hospitable and pushy at once. The viewer doesn't need to know the game: the image of a seller who offers something so insistently that refusing is impossible is enough.
Besides, the amateur graphics create the effect of “found footage”: a spectacle nobody expected to become a meme, which is why it looks funnier than any staged piece.
“Lamp, rope, bombs? All yours, my friend, if only you had the money.” A classic reference: the caption quotes the theme of goods and adds a condition that makes the generosity conditional.
“A friend offers to sell you his investment course when you just wanted to know the time.” The joke moves the pushy seller into modern life.
“When the app says the subscription is free for the first seven days.” The hero's smile works as the smile of a service that knows you'll stay anyway.
“The store cashier at the checkout: no small change, have a candy instead.” An everyday situation and a shopkeeper with an outstretched hand fit together perfectly.
The template fits scenes where someone pushes something, offers something or is overly delighted by a sale. The caption is best built as a short line from a merchant, not as a long explanation.
If you make a remix, keep the recognizable details: the outstretched hand and the red object. They give the frame the feel of a deal about to be struck.
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